


Loyalty

by Maltheniel



Series: The Once and Future King [11]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, and falls in love, deals with Camelot's past persecution of magic, deals with the fear of death, in which Leon thinks about the difference between loyalty and respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25281592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maltheniel/pseuds/Maltheniel
Summary: Leon's father taught him that loyalty to one's king was absolute.The problem is that Leon's king has more cracks in his pedestal than Leon likes thinking about. The problem is that some of Leon's orders leave him with nightmares he can never quite shake, especially the orders that have to do with destroying magic.In time, Leon will have to come to terms with those orders. And he will have to define what loyalty means, exactly, for him.
Relationships: Gwen & Leon (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Leon & Merlin (Merlin), Leon and Uther (Merlin)
Series: The Once and Future King [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774627
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Loyalty

Leon's father was a knight, or at least he was eventually. He fought by Uther's side in their youth as Uther sought to create Camelot out of a sprawl of disparate people, and Uther rewarded him with knighthood as soon as that meant something. The lesson his father left Leon was that of loyalty.

"He is your king," he told Leon. "Never forget that."

Leon never forgot. He also never forgot that his father died in Uther's service, as did countless other men.

That didn't dissuade him from being a knight. He made peace with life or death, whichever came, and trained as hard and long as he could to give himself a chance at life.

There was just one way he differed from his father. He would give his loyalty to the king, whoever he was, but if that king earned his loyalty, he would respect him as well as fight for him.

For years he thought Uther had learned his loyalty. He was a strong king who had sacrificed for his people. He saw Leon's loyalty and made him first knight.

Leon helped train Uther's son and thought that growing up as royalty was not a good recipe for being a king; Arthur was an entitled brat who expected his life to be handed to him on a silver platter. Leon longed to knock some sense into his head, but he knew his place. He would serve Arthur as he served Uther, and it wasn't up to him to knock sense into the lad. So Leon threw jousts and tournaments to the prince once he got skilled enough for that to reasonably happen, because he could see that part of why Arthur was becoming the way he was, was Uther's impossible expectations laid on his shoulders, and he wasn't going to give Uther more fuel to fire at his son.

That was one of the cracks in Uther's pedestal.

Years later, when Arthur had become a prince of a completely different color, the prince sought him out after the Tournament, after he had thrown the last battle to Uther. Some might not have recognized it, but Leon had known all too quickly what Arthur was doing and felt both a stab of pride that the prince had come this far and a pang that Uther made it necessary.

"I just wanted to say," Arthur told him a bit awkwardly. "Well. I know now why you used to throw jousts sometimes."

Leon smiled – a bit tightly, because that was something he had never wanted his prince to understand.

"I never wanted to," he said simply.

Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. "Never again?" he asked. "Between us?"

"Never again," Leon swore, and clasped Arthur's arm in the manner of knights.

He thought, after the prince had gone off, that Arthur was a startlingly perceptive prince, and willing now to put himself on the level of his people.

He had never seen that in Uther. His father might have seen it, given the rosy glow of the stories he told of their youth, when Uther was a lad younger than Leon's father with stars in his eyes and the world ahead of him.

Leon was just a bit glad his father was dead if it never meant being disappointed in his king. He thought, though, that Arthur was well on his way to winning his respect.

He had never paid all that much attention to Arthur's skinny, talkative servant until the day Merlin demanded he let him into the throne room or Arthur would kill Uther.

The man who could talk Arthur down from something he must have made up his mind firmly to do had a good deal of influence over the prince indeed. Leon started paying more attention to him after that.

Leon was not a stupid man. He knew that a lot of the changes in Arthur that made him a man Leon wanted to follow had started after Merlin had arrived in Camelot.

There were days Leon wondered certain things about Merlin. Leon carefully did not wonder about those things for long, because if they had formed into thoughts loyalty would have demanded that he carry those thoughts to Uther, and there were certain things Leon's loyalty did not extend to doing.

Uther's persecution of magic was another crack in Uther's pedestal.

It wasn't that Leon hadn't helped search for magical artifacts and even found them. It wasn't that he hadn't arrested sorcerers. Every one of Uther's knights had.

It was just that the look in their eyes kept him up at night sometimes. It was just that there were days when he wondered how much innocent blood he had on his hands and couldn't sleep for thinking of it.

It was just that he hoped with all his heart and soul that Arthur wouldn't continue the persecution when he came to the throne. If he did, the pedestal of respect that he was building in Leon's mind would be shattered in an instant.

There was a reason he was silently overwhelmed with relief when Aredian died and nothing came of his accusations against Merlin. He didn't know how he'd have stood having Merlin's blood on his hands.

"I need a dozen knights!" Arthur called the words into the utter silence of Uther's throneroom. "Those who do not wish to fight can do so without stain on their character. For those brave enough to volunteer should know, the chances of returning are slim."

Leon did not wish to die. Leon had never wished to die, and fighting a dragon was an ugly death to face.

But Leon knew he would die, and as a knight of Camelot he knew he would die violently in its service sooner or later. And there was no better way to die than by Arthur's side, letting the prince know he was and always would be loyal.

He was the only knight to survive. At night, he added the names of the knights who had gone with them to the list of the names of all the knights who had died alongside him.

Being a knight was supposed to bring you honor in life and glory in death, but Leon had found that the only glory a knight got in death was a funeral pyre if his body was lucky enough to be brought back to Camelot or a burial in the woods if there were too many deaths at once. No one remembered the fallen for long; there were too many.

Leon made a litany of them and ran over them sometimes before he slept, often enough to remember their names.

He wondered if anyone would remember his name, when his day came and he joined his brothers. He wondered if the loyalty he showed his king and his prince would be remembered for more than a moment.

Arthur became king. Somewhere deep down inside, a small part of Leon he usually didn't let himself think about was relieved; he now served a king he both respected and was loyal to, and he wasn't nearly as afraid of receiving orders to do something that went against his conscience.

There were things he still carefully didn't think about, things he carefully still didn't mention, because the ban on magic still existed, and there were other loyalties hidden in Leon's breast besides that to the king.

He didn't think about that much either.

Leon had known Gwen from the day she was born. Her mother had been a maid in his father's house, and Leon had known all the servants well enough to run in and out of their houses if they let him. Gwen's mother laid her daughter in his arms a mere few days after she was born, still exhausted but beaming.

"My daughter," she told him, as Elyan watched them both with wide dark eyes. "Gwen."

Gwen had Leon's respect from the day she somehow got him into a lady's dress to get out of Camelot, and when she first became a queen Leon swore loyalty to her as he had to Arthur.

He had somehow never in all his thoughts on the reality of death faced the idea that someday he would be loyal to her alone and not to Arthur as well.

The blow was a hard one, and one that took him and all of Camelot a long time to swallow. But Leon shouted, "Long live the Queen!" and meant it from the depths of his soul. Whenever anyone hinted that a man should be on the throne, he combated the idea with all the force that was in him, and he led Gwen's battles when Camelot had to go to war, always on the front lines where Arthur would have been.

He still didn't die. He began to seriously think there might be something to Merlin's theories about that time he'd drunk from the Cup of Life.

Leon trained Arthur's son as he had once trained Uther's, except with a large dose of fatherliness involved – and no throwing of any jousts.

"I have magic," Merlin told him.

Leon nodded, because that simply meant some thoughts didn't have to lurk in the corners of his brain any longer.

"Does the Queen know?" he asked, because Gwen had told him yesterday that she was planning to legalize magic, and the fact that her right-hand man had magic might be good for her to know. He wouldn't pretend he wasn't surprised by her decision, but somewhere deep down he was relieved. Maybe some of the voices that cried out in his dreams that he had spilled their blood would be silent now.

Merlin smiled an enigmatic little smile, which Leon read, perhaps, better than Merlin intended. _There's a reason I never told you this before, because I knew you would run straight to the King with it._

"Yes, she knows," he said.

Leon nodded. "I guess I know now why I've survived so long," he said. The knights had used to call Merlin their good luck charm, because the knights who went out with him were less likely to be killed. There was actually a good reason the Knights of the Round Table had lived so long.

There was one other question Leon had to ask.

"Did Arthur know?"

He hated himself a little for indulging in his curiosity the moment the words left his mouth, because Merlin flinched and looked away. He always looked old and tired nowadays, young as he was; in that moment he looked utterly exhausted.

"Not until the very end," he said, shaking his head slowly. "I was a coward."

"You were never a coward, Merlin," Leon said stoutly, because someone who could live in Camelot with magic when it was illegal was not and never had been a coward.

The smile Merlin gave him was even smaller and tighter this time. "Well, now you know," Merlin said, and turned to go.

Leon had the sudden impression of a beaten dog, suddenly taken away from the master that had beaten it and told the world was much wider and freer than it had ever known, unable to realize that and terribly afraid to come out of its shell lest it be hurt again, but being forced out of its shell bit by bit anyway. He felt as though he was watching Merlin retreat to lick his wounds.

"Merlin!" he called after him.

Merlin turned a bit, but didn't speak.

"I would never have told Uther," Leon told him, quietly, steadily. "I never did."

Merlin turned back then, a touch of color coming into his cheeks. "Thanks, Leon," he said simply, but his smile was nearer its true one and his shoulders were square when he left.

Leon had been loyal to the old King. That had never meant that his loyalty to the King would make him betray his loyalty to a friend.

Leon had known that Gwaine and perhaps Lancelot had been loyal to Merlin more than they had been to Arthur, at least most definitely to begin with. He had used to think that near treason.

It was a good thing he didn't think that way anymore, because otherwise he'd think himself treasonous. On some level, he was loyal to Merlin too, and it wasn't because he had to be.

It was because Merlin had earned his deep respect – and through that, his loyalty.

He had, truly, been loyal to Merlin for years. It had just been one of those thoughts, tucked away never to see the light of day under a king who demanded absolute loyalty.

Perhaps Merlin wasn't the only one learning to come out of a cage.

When Leon met the Lady Matilde, she was in Camelot with her father, Lord Weatherby. Gwen had called a council of the lords to finalize her decisions on magic, and all the lords of Camelot had come, even those from far-flung corners of Camelot that didn't come much, like Weatherby. Lady Matilde was his grown daughter who accompanied him.

She was older than most lord's daughters usually stayed single, and Leon wondered if her dowry was very small or why someone hadn't snapped her up yet, for she wasn't lacking in beauty.

Leon had decided years ago that he wasn't going to marry. He knew his death was imminent, and he didn't want to leave a wife behind to waste away in grief as his mother had. But after Arthur's death Leon's grief resulted in an odd recklessness he'd never experienced before, both on the battlefield and off it. On the battlefield, only the knowledge that Percival depended on him and him alone to guard his back kept him from doing something stupid, and off it . . .

Off it, Leon was remembering a comment Gwen had made.

"Do you ever wish you hadn't married him?" he had asked her one evening. A terribly presumptuous question, but he presumed on old friendship, and he was watching her, reclining pale and tired, with her hand on her swelling stomach as she pored over the paperwork to change the laws on magic.

Gwen's eyes snapped up and she stared at him. "Do I wish I'd never married him!" she repeated in a weird, strangled voice. "Leon, what a question."

"I beg your pardon, my lady," he said quickly. "It's just – you had such a short time together, and now you're left with all the burdens he carried and more besides." _And there are days I look at you and wonder if you'll fade away as my mother did,_ he thought but didn't say.

"Oh, of course," Gwen said, tossing her head. She threw the papers on a table and stood up, crossing to stand by the small fireplace. Merlin, who was hunched over papers of his own and hadn't said a word unrelated to the law change all night, looked up sharply and watched her.

"But I don't regret it," Gwen said, turning to face Leon. "I'll never regret it. I waited for him and he waited for me, and we made the most of what we had. Don't you know I knew I could lose him every time he left the castle? I'm amazed we got the years we did."

The candlelight caught on tears in her eyes; the fire backlit her rich dress and her long black hair, and she looked strangely strong and beautiful in that moment, like an ethereal queen.

"I wouldn't trade one of those days for a thousand days with another man," Queen Guinevere said simply. She rested one hand on her stomach. "We loved each other – and we believed in each other. And he left his people and his child to me and believed I could care for them, and I shall not fail him."

She came back and sat down – and suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Merlin, still silent, got up and came over to put his arms around her, and she wept into his shoulder.

But from that moment Leon stopped worrying about Gwen fading away. She was too strong, and he respected her for that.

Maybe he could find a woman who would be strong enough to love him for the days they had together and mourn him without falling to pieces when he was gone.

It was for that reason that when the Lady Matilde took his arm when they were leaving a council chamber and chatted with him about Camelot for the second day in a row, he dared to ask, "My lady, would you desire a walk around town this evening?"

She flashed him a bright smile and agreed.

"May I show you something?" Matilde asked.

They'd been on walks around Camelot several times now. The lords were preparing to depart Camelot after the council, but Lord Weatherby didn't seem to be in a hurry to define his departure date and Leon had a standing invitation to lengthen a patrol enough to come visit when he liked. He was feeling almost giddy with it all.

"Of course," he said.

Matilde watched his face for a very long moment; they were standing so close that he could tell she was trembling, and he had never seen her face this drawn. He came down to earth out of the dreams he'd been buried in instantly.

"Matilde," he told her steadily, "whatever it is, you can tell me. I promise."

Matilde closed her eyes and drew a very deep breath. Then she lifted her hand to her lips, whispered a word, and held it out to him.

Gold flashed in her eyes, wide open and fixed on his, and a small flame licked up from her hand.

Leon knew she was watching him anxiously, but he could only stare transfixed at the flame in her hand.

His first thought was an instant flicker of worry that this would have to be a secret he'd keep, and he wouldn't even have the comfort of knowing that there wasn't anything _definite_ he wasn't reporting.

His second thought was the quick realization that that was outdated and he could actually know this safely.

His third thought was the knowledge that if he had been scared to know this she must have been terrified to show him, and even if this wasn't a matter of life and death anymore it was still a tremendous trust.

Leon tore his eyes away from the flames, met Matilde's wide brown eyes, and said the absolute truth.

"Matilde," he said, "it's beautiful."

She closed her hand with a shuddering gasp and flung her arms around him. Leon clasped her close and held her until her shivering ceased. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she was whispering over and over.

"Matilde," he interrupted her, "thank you. I know the trust you've placed in me. I promise I won't betray it."

Well, that explained why she had never gotten any suitors when she was younger. It also explained why her father had taken a lordship so far out on the border and never come to Camelot except when he had no choice.

"Do I still have the invitation to come to your father's?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, choking on a wet laugh. "Always, Leon."

He knew it wouldn't have been always if he had reacted differently, and he thanked God he had passed this test.

There was a lot he was risking here, more than he had realized before, but somehow Leon was still willing to risk it.

But in the days after Matilde and Lord Weatherby left Camelot, Leon's dreams became more disturbed than ever. Voices he thought long silent awoke and cried out; the eyes of sorcerers he had arrested stared into his soul; and night after night he woke and stumbled to the washstand to wash his hands until they were raw because he could only see them covered in blood.

One morning he stumbled out of his quarters after a sleepless night and nearly ran into Merlin, who stepped back with a look of surprise.

"I beg your pardon," Leon muttered, making to pass him.

Merlin stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Leon, are you alright?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"Do I look that bad?" Leon asked, with a strained laugh.

"You look run ragged," Merlin said, half-teasing but with clear honesty underneath the words.

 _So do we all nowadays,_ Leon could have said, but he didn't, because it suddenly occurred to him that it would be alright now to address Merlin as a sorcerer. He grabbed Merlin's arm and tugged him quickly back into his room.

"Leon, what's going on?" Merlin demanded, but he sounded more concerned than annoyed.

Leon shut the door and leaned against it for a moment.

"I've killed sorcerers," he said quietly.

There was a complete, dead silence. Leon couldn't turn to look at Merlin.

Then, at long last, Merlin said very quietly, "I know."

Leon spun to look at him then. "You know?" he demanded.

Merlin faced him squarely; he was pale and drawn, but he met Leon's eyes. "I'm sure every knight who served under Uther has," he said quietly. "Arthur did."

"And you – you can live with that?" Leon asked, chest tight.

"I've lived with it for a long time," Merlin said, with the bitter half-smile that was becoming regular with him now.

"You don't hate me," Leon said incredulously.

Merlin shrugged and looked away. "Oh, I could be angry," he said, and for the first time his voice turned bitter. "I could be furious with everyone who persecuted my people, who hunted down the druids and killed them even when they were determined to remain peaceful, who drove so many with magic to attack the king out of anger or desperation and be killed. What did I do? I killed those with magic who tried to kill the king. I could hate Uther for starting this whole thing. What did I do? I defended him. I don't know if I have the right to hate you, Leon. Most of my people hate me, I think."

"For heaven's sake, it's not the same thing," Leon said impatiently. "You never hunted anyone down for having magic alone. You never tore apart someone's quarters searching for magic." When Merlin shuddered, he added, quietly and a bit bitterly himself, "You had to live how many years afraid I might turn on you for it. You have every reason to hate me."

Merlin shrugged uncomfortably. "I can't," he said simply, meeting Leon's eyes again. "If I spend my whole life looking over my shoulder, holding grudges against the people who might have hurt me under the old laws – I wouldn't be able to live with myself. You did it under orders, Leon, not of your own choosing, and you told me you wouldn't have turned me into Uther – you never did. I can't hold grudges forever."

"You're a great man, Merlin," Leon told him. He told himself that it was because he was overtired that there were tears in his eyes. "I don't know if I can ever forgive myself."

Merlin's smile was suddenly nearer his old bright one. "And that's why I can forgive you," he said quietly. "Now I should really go find Gaius."

He moved toward the door; Leon could find no words, but he clapped his hand on Merlin's shoulder in deep gratitude. Merlin paused under the touch, and Leon pulled him into a quick hug.

It was a bit of a strange thing, he thought, a knight of Camelot hugging a sorcerer and neither of them one bit afraid of the other, and he would never cease being grateful to Merlin for letting it happen.

But talking to Merlin was one thing. Telling Matilde would be quite another.

He told Gwen one night that he was going to lead a patrol out to the borders of Camelot.

"To Weatherby?" Merlin asked with his old cheeky grin, and Gwen smiled and approved the trip. Percival went with him.

It was joy beyond anything Leon had known before when Matilde flew into her father's courtyard and flung herself into Leon's arms so eagerly she nearly knocked him over, and for one evening Leon lost himself in the joy of sitting next to her under her father's hospitality. Percival shot him smug grins across the room on the sly all night.

But the next day, when they went walking hand in hand over the green hills around her father's castle, he knew he had to tell her.

"Matilde," Leon said. He pulled his hand out of hers and turned to face her.

"You sound so serious," she teased him, grinning up into his face.

Leon bit his lip and looked at the ground. "This is serious," he said quietly. "Matilde, I've been a knight of Camelot for a long time. I served under Arthur and Uther before Gwen. And I – I was too loyal. I obeyed in doing things that should never have been done."

He forced himself to look up. Matilde was watching him, sober and far too clear-eyed. Leon couldn't meet her gaze.

"I've hunted sorcerers," he said quietly. "I've tracked down magical artifacts and their owners. I've brought them back to Camelot for execution. I've participated in destroying your people."

There was a long silence; Leon didn't dare look up.

"Mother died at Camelot," Matilde said at last, quietly. "The king found out she had magic at the height of the Purge and sacrificed her blood on the altar of his zeal. Almost no one knew I had been born, or I'd have likely died with her. Father hid me away, got himself transferred to this place, and came here to raise me. I don't remember my mother, but Father tells me she was beautiful and powerful. I still use her spellbook with her handwriting in the margins."

"I'm sorry," Leon choked out. It was all he could find to say.

"I mean to say, I knew this before," Matilde told him. "I know what Camelot was like. I knew you probably served under Uther. I'm glad you told me, but I went into this clear-eyed, Leon."

He looked up, stunned. She met his gaze with a little smile that reminded him painfully of Merlin's tiny, bitter smiles.

"Matilde – you can't mean –" he gasped.

"I do mean," she told him. "I'm glad you told me, but I guessed. Of course, I'd have fled as far from you as I could get if you'd drawn your sword when I showed you – but I knew I could use my magic to defend myself without getting my head chopped off if you did. And I like you, Sir Leon. You've changed – you're not the too-loyal man who did all that."

"I'm not?" Leon asked, half-stunned. He longed to see himself through Matilde's eyes, to believe this of himself.

"Of course not," she said. Bravely, incredibly, she reached out and took both hands in hers. "If Queen Gwen ordered you to attack a druid camp tomorrow, would you do it?"

Unconsciously, Leon shuddered. "Never," he swore.

"See, I told you," she said.

"I don't know how you magic users can forgive so easily," Leon whispered, pulling her close to him.

She smiled a truer smile, closing the distance to hug him. "It's how we live," she said.

"And I'm incredibly lucky for it," he said.

"Oh yes," she answered playfully in his ear. "And don't you forget it."

Leon didn't forget.

Their first son, Kay, had clear brown eyes that never turned gold. He did want to be a knight, so Leon took him to the palace and trained him with Amhar and the other squires when he was old enough.

"If you're going to be a knight," Leon told his son, "choose the monarch you are going to serve wisely. They will expect total loyalty, and if they're a good monarch you'll be glad to give loyalty. But never be afraid to have your own values, my son, or choose a monarch you can truly respect. Never be afraid to say what is right."

But when their second child, Eloise, was three, she called out a word she must have picked up from Merlin when he visited, and the candles in the darkening room caught on fire.

"Eloise!" Matilde exclaimed, bright and joyful and proud.

Leon swept his daughter into his arms and wept.

But somehow, with his magical wife lying beside him in bed and his gold-eyed daughter scrambling into their bed in the mornings to wake them up, Leon never woke from nightmares of what he had done again.

Arthur came back. Leon's fellow knights came back, and Camelot was more joyous than ever.

Except for the threat of the Saxons hanging over all their heads.

Leon and Matilde had five children, three of whom had gold in their eyes, the youngest of whom was a mere babe, and Leon wanted to live more than he had ever wanted to live in his life.

"So the Queen goes to the battle," Matilde said quietly, the night before they were due to leave. She sat tucked against his side, their smallest daughter asleep on her lap.

Leon felt fear clutch tight around his heart and sat up quickly. "You aren't coming," he said rapidly. "Matilde, I need you here. I need to know you will be here for the children!"

"Shush, shush, you'll wake Ailith," she protested, laying a long finger quickly against his lips. "Of course I'm not going. The children need me here; I don't know how Gwen is letting Amhar go to the front. But I wish I had the few extra days with you."

Leon felt the unfamiliar tears prick his eyes again, and he clung to his wife. "I promise you, Matilde," he said, "I will do everything in my power to come home."

"And if you do not," she whispered back, "I will do everything in my power to hold our home together. I will raise our sons into men you would be proud to own and our daughters into women you would present to the queen with pride."

Leon had, perhaps, never loved his wife more than he did in that moment, knowing his children were safe with her in a way he had never quite been after his father's death.

"I love you so much," he whispered, kissing her hair.

"I love you too," Matilde whispered, lifting her face to kiss him. "But oh, do, do come back to me."

Somehow Leon came back to her.

He would never forget the moment he saw her, waiting for him in the Camelot courtyard with the children around her. For a moment, his world narrowed down and they were all he could see. A moment later she was in his arms, and they were both sobbing for joy.

There were loyalties besides those to king and country, and there were loyalties that meant more. Leon had fought for Camelot and for Albion because he had sworn loyalty to his king and his queen and he would have been a craven coward not to, but he had fought to come home because of his wife.

Freya took him aside a few weeks after she arrived at the palace. He was surprised, for, lovely maid though she was, she was also shy and not prone to talking to anyone who wasn't Merlin or who hadn't been in the lake with her. But, although she was twisting her hands nervously in the lace trim over her skirt, she asked him for a word and drew him aside into an alcove.

"You're afraid to die," she said.

The simplicity and the bluntness of her statement took his breath away for a moment.

Knights weren't really supposed to be afraid to die.

"How do you know?" he demanded.

"I watched Camelot for years," she answered simply. "I watched you. I know. But," and she leaned forward and put her hand on his arm in earnestness, "you don't have to be afraid."

Leon wondered if he would be able to breathe anytime soon. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"I looked ahead," Freya whispered. "I had some small skill that way. You die a peaceful death, old and an honorary knight, content and with those you love around you."

"Thank you," Leon gasped out. "Thank you, thank you."

Freya gave him a smile that suddenly rivaled Merlin's for its pure, bright sweetness and hurried out of the alcove. But Leon rested his head on his arm against the wall and fought for a moment or two to get his breath.

In his heart of hearts, that was how he had always wanted to die, especially ever since he met Matilde. Knowing that it was true – knowing that he didn't have to be terrified every time he left her –

Leon was suddenly at peace for the first time since he had gotten the news of his father's death as a very small boy.

He broke out of the alcove and dashed off to find Matilde and tell her. He would tell no one else, for this was too personal and secret, but she deserved to know.

Arthur was king of Albion, and Gwen was queen of Camelot, and there was a certain small piece of Leon that was glad he wasn't directly loyal to Arthur in some ways.

He knew that wasn't right or fair, that he no longer felt he could pledge absolute loyalty to the man he had once said he would ride into the mouth of hell for and meant it. But the Queen had set magic free in Camelot, and Arthur had once led an attack on a druid camp.

And Leon had a wife and children with magic.

But he knew that he couldn't go on living this way, that either Arthur needed to deserve his undivided loyalty or he needed to find a way to be loyal only to Gwen. He was done with serving a king he couldn't fully respect.

He found Arthur alone one day, at a time he knew was between meetings. "Can I speak to you, Your Highness?" he asked, coming into the king's chamber on his invitation.

Arthur laid aside the stack of letters he had been mulling over. "Of course, Leon," he said. "What is this about?"

Leon planted himself in front of the king's desk and faced him, looking him in the eyes.

"I am loyal to Camelot, and to the crown, as you know," he said. "But I want to know –" He couldn't find words, and broke off.

Arthur stood up, looking concerned. "Leon," he said, "tell me truly. Have I done something to betray your loyalty?"

Never let it be said that the King of Albion was a fool.

"Long ago," Leon said quietly, "you partook in your father's war against magic. You attacked a druid camp. You believed that all magic was wrong. And I know that you had only heard your father's perspective, that you wanted his respect. I know that I hunted those with magic and brought them back to be slaughtered. We both have blood on our hands, Arthur."

He looked up and met the king's suddenly haunted eyes.

"But I have done what I can to repair my wrongs," Leon said steadily. "I have sought out the families of those I know I betrayed and made what reparation I can. I have made public apology in the court before Camelot and the Queen for what I have done. I would lay down my life in an instant before I would let any harm come near my wife and my family.

"And it was Gwen who made magic free again in Camelot."

Arthur stared at him a moment, then sat down slowly, folding his hands under his chin.

"I see your point, Leon," he said quietly. "Thank you."

Taking that for his dismissal, Leon bowed and turned toward the door.

"Leon," Arthur said suddenly, "if you see Merlin, could you send him to me?"

"Of course, Arthur," Leon answered, and left.

Two weeks later, Arthur gathered everyone who could come into the courtyard for an announcement.

"Nearly forty years ago," he said, "my father declared magic to be illegal and started a purge of everyone who had it or anyone adjacent to them. He did this because my father caused magic to be used in my birth, but it turned on my mother and took her life. Unwilling to believe himself at fault, my father unleashed a reign of terror on anyone with magic. I am sorry to admit that I and all the knights who served under my father were at some point part of this persecution.

"I was predicted by the druids to bring magic back and end the persecution, but I failed to do this in my first life, leaving it to my wife, the Queen Guinevere, to declare magic legal again and allow those who had lived all their lives in fear to breathe again. When I came back, I fully supported her in this decision, but it was brought to my attention lately that I have not truly done enough to repair what I did in the persecution.

"I therefore reinforce what my wife has decreed about magic in Camelot; it is free, and sorcerers, warlocks, and druids are free, unless of course they violate the other laws that govern all of us. I intend to insure that this is truly the case throughout Albion, that there are no pockets where sorcerers are being persecuted covertly behind closed doors, that Camelot and the other kingdoms are all safe places for those with magic to live. And I intend to find out if there are still any living family members of those I hurt directly and see if they will accept any reparations from me. I know one knight has done this, and I encourage any other knights who took part in my father's regime to do so. I hereby apologize formally for all the actions I took during the purge that furthered my father's cause, and I apologize for all the hurt I caused, purposefully or inadvertently.

"I know this will not restore the years of your lives lost to fear, the loved ones whose lives my father and we who enforced his policies took, the memories of the dark past. But I want to do my part to bring us into the future, where those with magic are fully accepted on every level again."

Matilde leaned against Leon's side, and her eyes were full of tears. She had shot him one bright, proud glance when Arthur mentioned the one knight who had made reparations. Leon put his hand on Eloise's shoulder, for of his children she was standing nearest him, and felt at peace.

"That was a good speech!" Gwaine said, when they were all gathered together later. "Did you write it, Merlin?" This was an ongoing joke between Merlin, Gwaine, and Arthur.

"No," Merlin answered. He was smiling all over his face as though he'd never be able to stop, his eyes overbright. Leon knew there had been tears in his eyes as he stood on the balcony by Arthur's side during that speech. The servant boy who had come to Camelot so long ago had changed the king more than Leon had ever dreamed. "He wrote that one all himself."

Gwaine turned to clap his hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Good work, Arthur," he said, and for once his words were completely unironic.

Arthur smiled and turned to Leon. "Well?" he said. "Did I at least make progress toward winning your loyalty?"

He, too, was completely sincere. Leon bowed and smiled. "You have it fully, Arthur," he said, "along with my respect."

**Author's Note:**

> I expected this chapter to be a fairly simple look at Leon and loyalty, and not take a left turn and dive deep into Camelot's history with magic! But I had wanted to include more people with magic into the story, and sometimes characters do what they do, and here we are. (I wanted to have a sentence in here that the troll business was what cracked Uther's pedestal entirely, but it didn't really fit in.)


End file.
